Random Review: Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

[HorribleSubs] Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 12 [720p][15-09-44]

 

“I feel the same way.”

Note: This is going to be more of a final impressions post than an actual review, since I don’t really want to try to quantify my enjoyment of series with numbers and all that as much anymore, and I want to be painting broader strokes here considering how everyone clearly has different ways of analyzing and judging the stuff we consume. 

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (lit. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun) is probably the biggest surprise of the year for me so far, a very pleasant surprise indeed. I pegged this as a possible sleeper, but lo and behold, it turned out to be my favourite series to debut in the Summer 2014 season.

[HorribleSubs] Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 12 [720p][15-04-45]What’s important when watching Nozaki-kun though, is to know that this isn’t a romantic comedy, rather, it is a comedy about romance. And it is a very good comedy at that – one focusing on challenging the viewer’s perceptions and understandings about many things, namely our perception of traditional gender roles, and each gender’s idea of what an ideal romance is. It doesn’t break the fourth wall or anything, but it does have a great self-awareness to its comedy that is never off-putting either, and reminds us that we shouldn’t always try to see romance from only one perspective. It also lovingly makes fun of shoujo manga tropes and has bits of otaku humor laced in for good measure as well.

[HorribleSubs] Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 04 [720p][16-35-15]
Mikoshiba ‘Mikorin’ Mikoto – Love Hunter, Biggest Loser, also Best Girl of 2014

Nozaki-kun has an ensemble cast of 7 main characters which gradually get introduced through its runtime, all of which are surprisingly lovable in their own right especially considering the very short length of the series. The series gets its gags across through pairing up the characters together, and their supposed romantic interactions become fodder for some good laughs. The ‘princely’ Kashima and her (yes, her) beloved Hori-chan-senpai that forcibly drags her to club practice with force, Sakura being madly in love with a shoujo mangaka Nozaki-kun who is ironically completely oblivious to her feelings (despite being someone who’s supposed to be in a position to understand the emotions of young girls in love!), the oddball pairing Seo and Wakamatsu…and then there’s Mikoshiba ‘Mikorin’ Mikoto. He’s the funniest of the main cast for me, and anyone who watches this series will probably agree that he brings the biggest laughs. I think he best represents the series as a whole – he acts like a shoujo manga heroine, is a huge otaku, is also popular around ladies but is also completely unable to hold conversations with them. I don’t think I’ve seen a character as ingeniously written as Mikorin in a long time.

[HorribleSubs] Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 09 [720p][22-01-37]Despite not having amazing production values like some of Dogakobo’s other works (Love Lab for example, another pretty damn good series by the way), there was a lot of charm in the series that made up for its lack of amazing animation. It had a solid soundtrack, it never looked cheap, and it was clearly a labour of love in part from the production team that really breathed life into this series. There was just so much personality in the series direction, and it was just a joy to watch on screen every week. My favourite bits were the cute scene transitions throughout the series – small little details that just gave the series so much heart it was hard to not fall in love with what it was doing, even if it wasn’t always funny.

[HorribleSubs] Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 01 [720p][13-33-03]
Sakura Chiyo and Nozaki Umetarou – misunderstandings galore

Which is something I must admit. Like all comedies go the quality of the series was dependent on whether the jokes hit – not all the jokes were /that/ hilarious, especially the ones involving the second-tier secondary characters like Nozaki’s editor and his fellow mangaka neighbour, and of course because it was based off a 4-koma the jokes didn’t always transition well into the next one, but most of the jokes that were funny really hit it right out of the park. Even if the comedy doesn’t always work for me, I do always appreciate what it’s trying to do – going against conventions on many different things, actively challenging many ideas….this series is much smarter than what most people including myself give it credit for, I think.

[HorribleSubs] Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun - 05 [720p][04-03-23]All in all I’m extremely happy I got the chance to watch Nozaki-kun. It’s genuinely funny, charming, rather smartly-written and all around a ton of fun to watch every week. I fell in love with the main cast of the series, and I’m honestly really sad to see this go. Luckily sales have been great on both the anime and manga front so a sequel is highly likely for this one, and you can bet that I’ll definitely watch it. In fact, I may or may not have just bought a couple of volumes of the manga for good measure as well…

This Post Has 12 Comments

  1. Moonlight September 22, 2014

    I really hope we get a 2nd season. I love the manga, and the anime was my favourite part of Sundays. They did show a character from the manga who hadn’t been introduced in the anime yet, during the final episode’s credits, so possibly a sequel hook?
    I’m really gonna miss the anime. 🙁

    1. sidekick September 22, 2014

      Yes, that was Mayu that made a cameo in the final moments of the episode wasn’t it! I haven’t read the manga (or rather, I have read a few chapters but wasn’t very impressed with it) so I don’t know much about him but damn, that better have been a sequel hook.

      I adore this show. It’s just so much fun to watch and brings me so much joy 🙂

  2. hee7 September 22, 2014

    Your subtitle for Mikorin is so accurate it hurts.

    If I had any criticism for this show it’s that there wasn’t enough of him in the latter half. He is my Soul Sister. He speaks to me as, like, the true mascot of the show. Move over, tanuki!

    1. sidekick September 23, 2014

      thank you! as resident protector of mikorin i feel it is my responsibility to make sure the world understands this poor sweet child.

      Yeah, my point was that the quality of the series fluctuates depending on the characters in focus, and wasn’t that consistent. Luckily majority of the episodes were a crap ton of fun so I’m willing to overlook one or two characters I didn’t really care about

  3. Wanderer September 23, 2014

    Chiyo is teh cutestest! …est.

    1. sidekick September 23, 2014

      Agreed. If it wasn’t for Mikorin she’d be best girl this season for me. Sucks to be Chiyo. Loses best girl title, never gets the guy.

    2. vergiltfs September 23, 2014

      Chiyo is super cute, but for me Kawashima is super super cute.

  4. vergiltfs September 23, 2014

    Funniest anime of this season.

    1. sidekick September 23, 2014

      I actually found Sabagebu and Barakamon to be funny as well, just that Sabagebu’s mean sense of humor gets a bit too overwhelming for my taste, and Barakamon is hampered down by failed attempts at trying to portray the pains of an artist in doubt and whatnot.

      It’s been a really good season for comedies I think 😀

      1. vergiltfs September 23, 2014

        Well I also enjoyed Sabagebu and Barakamon, but I found funniest Gekkann shoujo, Kashima and Mikorin were really funny. And Chiyo and Nozaki interactions were amazing.

        1. sidekick September 23, 2014

          Somehow it was mostly the charm and less the comedy that got to me but it’s probably because I have an awful sense of humor. Still fucking funny in some bits though. Literally every episode had at least one skit I laughed out loud in

  5. Vange Chandran September 27, 2014

    It would make my life if there were a 2nd season to this anime. Like you said, not all the jokes were funny, but many of them hit home!! (I wish the fake confession had been a real one though… T_T ) This was undoubtedly among my favorites for this season, second only to Barakamon (in which 100% of the jokes and feels hit home for me). If only there were more amazing anime like Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun! 😀

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